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Kane County Chronicle reporter Eric Schelkopf had the chance to talk to Walker about the upcoming show.

Eric Schelkopf: You are coming to Blues on the Fox, and I imagine you will be playing a lot from your latest album, “Hornet’s Nest.” What were your goals for “Hornet’s Nest” and do you think you accomplished them?

Joe Louis Walker: I was hoping to maybe get some new ears, people who haven’t heard of me. The record’s only been out for a few months now, so if we accomplished that, I won’t know for that for a while.

But hopefully we got some new people listening, and that would be a good thing.

Schelkopf: It seems like you really put a lot in there. It’s blues, rock, funk and soul. Do you just like mixing it up? Is that who you are as a musician, you roam through a lot of genres?

Walker: The musicians who would come to the Bay Area and play, like Sly and the Family Stone and Tower of Power, all these people were doing something different with their music.

They were all trying to do something new at the time. So that’s the sort of thing that I gravitate to.

It’s easy to do one thing. But I think audiences are a lot smarter, and expect a lot more.

Schelkopf: It does seem like to get younger people interested in the blues, you are going to have to incorporate other genres in the music, such as rock and even rap.

Walker: Exactly. And try to do it good. I like a lot of younger people’s stuff, and I could see doing something with some of them.

There are some younger people out there really doing some good stuff, people like the North Mississippi Allstars, Gary Clark Jr., and of course, Jack White.

It does my heart good to see them out there, because they all do various things. They all don’t do the same thing.

The music business is a place for misfits.

Schelkopf: At 16, you were already playing with Jimi Hendrix, and other musicians like Ike Turner and Albert King, they gave you advice. What did you learn from them?

Walker: It was eye-opening. It was something that would be an inspiration.

The generation of musicians that I came out of, they took chances. It really inspired me to know that people could push the envelope.

Freddie King became a big star not playing 12-bar blues. He sort of took the blues and went in his own direction.

It remains to be seen if I’ve made that kind of impact, but I’ve reached a lot of different people all over the world, and I’m glad of that. And I’m glad that I’ve inspired a little bit of a younger generation to play instruments and live music, and to be a musician.

Because there’s a big difference between someone wanting to be a musician, and someone wanting to be famous. All the reality shows that are on TV now are basically about being famous.